Geil Black Dragon PC3 12800 CAS 9 6GB Review

Introduction:

Are you looking for a new kit of memory for your desktop setup? Well if you are looking for the newest type of setup, utilizing the Intel Core i7 processor with one of the x58 chipsets, you should look at the DDR3 memory kits that allows for triple channel memory (three DIMMs). With the memory controller being moved off of the chipset and on to the processor itself, the voltages that go to the memory need to be down in the 1.65V range, to prevent any damage or degradation to the processor. This has been one of the concerns for memory overclocking with the new standard as to achieve the high frequencies and low timings, we were requiring voltages around the 2.0V mark. I am very curious to see exactly how well the Geil Black Dragon PC3 12800 CAS 9 6GB kit of DDR3 memory will perform when it is put up against some of the other kits out on the market, not only in the overall performance that they can provide, but also in the overclocking section.

Closer Look:

The Geil Black Dragon PC3 12800 CAS 9 kit of memory has a very unique looking package. A print of a dragon is on the packaging to the right side with the print "The Ultimate Gaming Experience Triple Channel Kit" printed inside of the dragon's head. In the bottom right hand corner, you see the Geil logo and the Black Dragon logo is printed in the top left corner. When we take a look at the back of the package, we see a few cut outs in the packaging that show you a first glimpse at the sticks themselves. There also is a sticker that gives you the information about the kit, such as that every stick is 2GB for a 3 x 2GB setup, and the timings are set at 9-9-9-28 and will operate at 1600MHz. When you pull the sticks out of the package, you are going to see that they are all placed in a clear plastic holder to keep them in place while they are in the package.

When we get the sticks pulled out of the plastic holder, we can see exactly what they look like. On the front of the sticks, we see the same sticker that was on the back of the packaging, but here we are going to see one extra piece of information about the kit, the recommended voltage setting of 1.6V. All three of the sticks are "naked" meaning that they do not have any heatspreaders on them to help keep the sticks from overheating during normal operation. The backside of the sticks shows a gold design on the PCB - it is a pair of golden dragon eyes.

Now that we know what the Geil Black Dragon PC3 12800 CAS 9 6GB kit of DDR3 memory looks like, it's time to take a look at the specifications of the kit.